


Predictable

by semele



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 14:00:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1229068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/pseuds/semele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logan Echolls, age twenty seven, calls her at two in the morning, drunk like a skunk, and it's like nothing has changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Predictable

**Author's Note:**

> Written for youcallitwinter, prompt:
> 
>  
> 
> _for the fifth time this month_  
>  you say you’re going to leave him  
> he calls you a cunt over the phone  
> then walks the three miles to your house  
> and kisses your mouth until the word is just  
> a place on your body.  
> i don’t know what brings broken people together  
> maybe damage seeks out damage.

Logan Echolls, age twenty seven, calls her at two in the morning, drunk like a skunk, and it's like nothing has changed.

“A-a, don't roll your eyes at me, Veronica. I can hear you rolling your eyes.”

“I'm not rolling anything. I'm sleeping. Bye.”

“Wait! Veronica!” The emphasis on her name makes her stop the way it always had. _For fuck's sake,_ she thinks, _we're adults._ “Veronica, please. I need you to pick me up. I can't drive, I... Please, help me?”

Half an hour later she has him rambling from the back seat of her car, and she's trying to figure out where the hell is she supposed to drop him off. It's not like she knows where he's staying. They haven't even spoken for almost three years, so all she knows is that he lives somewhere in LA. At least she hopes he still does.

In the end, she dumps him on her own couch, not even making an effort to understand the incoherent words he slurs as he gazes at her intensely.

She does all in her power to avoid his stare.

***

In the morning, there is considerably more groaning, and also considerably fewer emphatic “Veronicas” coming out of Logan's mouth. This might or might not be an improvement.

“I can't believe I drunk-dialed you for a lift. I'm so sorry.”

This sounds more like senior-year-of-college Logan than tragic-high-school Logan, and Veronica gives him a shrug.

“Really? You can't?”

“Yeah, okay, point. Nothing I haven't done before. Still, I'm sorry for the trouble.”

It would be polite to say “No trouble at all,” polite and adult, and so completely bizarre she just says: “Toast?”

He's dressed better than when she ran into him eight months ago (they might've not spoken for three years, but it doesn't mean they haven't seen each other – there wasn't much talking that night, not when it could be replaced by mutual drunkenness and wandering hands, let's not mention it ever again). His shirt is carefully chosen, the adult and responsible shade of blue in stark contrast with its owner's recent shitfaced state.

“No, Veronica, listen, I'm really sorry.”

 _Here it goes again,_ she thinks, and, surely, what follows is even more predictable:

“Let me make it up to you.”

How unbelievably fucking teenage.

***

So they go out for coffee next Saturday, because why the fuck not. For a moment, Veronica considers doing the rational thing and blowing him off, but deep down she knows she won't do it anyway, so why pretend?

Logan shows up at five o'clock sharp, his hair bad and his clothes worse, this time thankfully not reeking of half-digested alcohol. It's like he's determined to remind her of Neptune, and the worst part is that he doesn't even need to try, because, in her head, Logan _is_ Neptune. He's Lily and Duncan, and learning things the hard way; absentee mothers, young love, and crying in the shower. But above all else, he is Veronica: the perfect database of who she is stashed in his memory in a chaotic mess of screams and promises.

At this point, he's the only guy who doesn't have this wounded look of surprise and disappointment when she screws him over.

“So, how was debauchery?” she asks, not bothering with a hello.

“Exquisite. I was with that woman, Belle Watling.”

“Of course you were.”

It's sickeningly easy, slipping back into a decade-old banter as if nothing changed. A shiver goes down Veronica's spine, because she knows what's gonna happen; if not now, then in a week, or a month, or a year.

At this point, she doesn't even bother to ask herself why. She used to have this whole list of excuses: she was lonely, or he was lonely, or they were drunk and things just happened, but it's not that simple.

Logan Echolls never _just_ happens.

Like: sophomore year, an ugly case that brought back more than it should've, and ended with her sobbing on Logan's floor, followed swiftly by a comfort hook-up because she'd been dumped and he was free.

Like: three months later, a shouting match during a party, and Veronica throwing Logan at a wall with more force than she thought she had. “Foreplay,” he snickered, massaging his shoulder, and two hours later he was eating her out in a bathroom of a frat house like the cliché he was.

Like: senior year, one dance floor and five tequilas too much. She could never look his girlfriend in the eye after that.

Like: graduation, a kiss on a rooftop, never mentioned again.

Like: eight months ago, LA, familiar hands and unfamiliar floor, and not nearly enough tequila for her to claim she didn't know what she was doing.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

“My place,” she says, her coffee half-finished. As she heads out, she doesn't even bother to check if he's following.

“And they say romance is dead,” she hears right behind her left shoulder.

***

Once they are in bed, there are no more quips, no more jokes or covers.

It's a battlefield.

“Veronica,” whispers Logan as she touches his chest. “Veronica, Veronica, Veronica,” a mantra turning into a moan, “Ver-ooooh-nica,” until she kisses him to shut him up. Even then, his emphasis is ringing in her head until she replaces it with a moan of her own, something between “Stay away from me,” “I don't trust you,”, and “Never leave me again”.

Maybe she has until next time to decide which one she should cry out.

Logan kisses that spot under her left breast that only he ever discovered, and Veronica squeezes her eyes shut to avoid his needy gaze. 

You see, mirrors don't go well with sex.

***

“Why did you call me?” she doesn't ask when he's putting his shirt back on, but, predictable as he is, he says “I love you “ anyway.


End file.
